


i'm the cat's meow

by leifstroganoff



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: Cats, F/M, Fluff, and him and zoey are dating, oh and leiftobin roommates but thats. a given w/ my fics tbh, theres not. more to it than that, this one really is just that leif has a cat, uh listen i know im notorious for undertagging but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29661708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leifstroganoff/pseuds/leifstroganoff
Summary: If you asked Leif anytime before he was 22 if he liked cats, the answer would’ve been a laugh and a ‘dude,no’. Besides the fact that he’d never been allowed to have a pet growing up, he really just thought they were more trouble than they were worth; getting into garbage, having to be litter trained, always begging for attention, but shooing it away when it’s given to them. Leif wasn’t a cat person until about a week after moving into his apartment in San Francisco.
Relationships: Tobin Batra & Leif Donnelly, Zoey Clarke/Leif Donnelly
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	i'm the cat's meow

**Author's Note:**

> this one spawned like. six months ago from talking in the discord about how leif's definitely a cat person and then i got really invested in leif's hypothetical cat that was either named something nerdy like zuko or a completely human name like timothy and i have no right to have started this over six months ago and for it to only be 2k words but _it's fine im fine its fine_
> 
> i hope you enjoy it, it's simple and fluffy and i got tired so there's a good bit that's just dialogue but this has been sitting in my WIP folder for six months so im cutting myself some slack

If you asked Leif anytime before he was 22 if he liked cats, the answer would’ve been a laugh and a ‘dude, _no_ ’. Besides the fact that he’d never been allowed to have a pet growing up, he really just thought they were more trouble than they were worth; getting into garbage, having to be litter trained, always begging for attention, but shooing it away when it’s given to them.

Leif wasn’t a cat person until about a week after moving into his apartment in San Francisco. He was taking some of the big cardboard boxes they’d used to move in out to the dumpsters in the alley when he heard a small ‘mew’ from behind some garbage. When he pushed aside the garbage bag that was sitting there with his foot, he saw the cutest black cat, wet and shivering from the little bit of rain they’d gotten earlier in the day.

“Hey there, buddy.” Leif squatted down, doing his best to ignore the stench of garbage blowing straight down the alley. “You look cold, lil guy.”

He stuck his hand out, slowly reaching towards the cat, waiting for the cat to move closer to him. It did, sniffing his hand and then it recoiled and hissed when he lost his balance and had to move his hand suddenly to catch himself.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He readjusted himself, leaning forward so his knee was pressed against the concrete through far too expensive pants that should, in no universe, be touching concrete like this. “No need to get spooked, it’s cool.” He stuck his hand out again, letting the cat come to him again and sniff his hand. It very hesitantly moved out past the dumpster and meowed again, flinching away when Leif went to make a move to pick it up. When he stilled for a second, the cat let him scritch softly between its ears. “Aw, you’re just frightened, huh? I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He scooped the cat up quickly in his arms, noting that despite it’s soft growling, it was otherwise doing nothing to jump out of his arms or protest being slowly transported inside and up to their apartment and, in fact, had buried its face into the crook of his arm.

“ _Bro_ , what the fuck?” Tobin was very quick to say when Leif came through the apartment door, carrying a soaked cat that he _definitely_ had not had when he left to take out the trash.

“Alright, hear me out, dude, hang on,” Leif set the cat down on the couch carefully as Tobin’s eyes followed him, moving to grab a towel out of the closet. “He just looked so sad and alone, soaked in rain, I couldn’t leave him out there by the dumpster. It hurt my heart, Tobes.”

He moved to pick the cat back up, grateful that it hadn’t moved in the few seconds it took for him to grab the towel, wrapping him gingerly in it and holding the bundle close to his chest despite the soft hiss that the cat let out, almost halfheartedly.

“I wanna be mad, bro. I wanna be so mad, we don’t need a cat, but holy shit, look at him.”

_“Right?”_

As if on cue, the cat hissed again from within the towel and Leif looked down at him, taking him in for the first time as he rubbed the towel gently in an effort both to dry him off and to comfort him. Looking at him inside, rather than outside in the rain and rushing to get inside, he noted that there was a white splotch over his right eye where an angry scar ran right over the eye, leaving a milky film through his big green eyes.

“Poor dude. He looks like he’s been through some shit.” Leif remarked, moving his hand up to scritch between the cat’s ears, earning a growl in response, yet no actual protest had been made from the cat as it pushed up and into Leif’s hand.

Tobin’s eyes lingered suspiciously on Leif before a sigh fell from his lips.

“ _Fine._ ” He said, Leif’s eyes moving from the cat to Tobin’s own with record speed and eyebrows raised. “We can keep him long enough to make sure he’s fine and take him to the vet and all that crap.”

Leif couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto his face as he looked back down at the cat, swaddled in his arms, who had begun to purr hesitantly and had shoved his face into the crook of Leif’s elbow once more. It’s not like he was gonna get attached or anything.

* * *

_He got attached._ He really didn’t mean to. The plan was to take him to the vet, see if he was chipped, find his owners (if he had any, which Leif highly doubted, based on the condition they’d found him in), and make sure he was going to a safe place.

That’s not… _quite_ how it panned out. In the time it took them to go to the vet, get him checked out, and get him home, it wasn’t just that Leif had gotten attached to the cat but that _the cat_ had gotten attached to him.

By the time they got back to their apartment the next day, the cat would only sit with Leif, burrowed into the side of his cardigan or pressed up against ironed khakis. He would only let Leif pick him up (Tobin had the scratches to prove it) and, the _kicker,_ he would only eat food if he saw Leif put it out for him.

Even Tobin couldn’t deny that this cat and Leif were practically made for each other (fussiness and desperate need for attention and all) as he watched the poor lil’ dude curled up on Leif’s lap, soaking in scritches as Leif absentmindedly watched _Doctor Who_ on the TV.

“Fine.”

Leif’s head shot away from Rose and The Doctor’s tearful goodbye (he’s seen it _more than enough times,_ anyways) to meet Tobin’s eyes where he stared down with a sigh.

“You can keep the cat.” Tobin plopped down on the couch next to him as he said it, bringing the beer he’d just opened to his lips and taking a gulp as Leif raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure you’ve already thought of a name, hit me with it.”

“Oh, uh, I hadn’t really —” He cut himself off when the cat meowed on his lap and he returned his hand to where it had been absently scritching at the complaint (Tobin noted for the second time that this cat had a need for attention almost as big as Leif’s). “ _Yeah_ , I have. Zuko.”

“ _Zuko?_ C’mon, dude.”

“No, it’s cause of -” He pointed to the angry red scar still over his eye and couldn’t help the small proud smile that crossed his face as he looked back at Tobin. “Cause of the scar. Like Zuko.”

“Whatever, dude, he’s yours.”

Tobin tried to sound nonchalant, but he couldn’t help the smile that drifted onto his face either as Leif’s attention was drawn back to _Zuko_ on his lap, hand moving down to rub soft fur and smiling when it produced a soft purr and an even softer ‘mew’ from the back of the cat’s throat, as he rubbed his head against Leif’s khakis.

* * *

The first time Zoey came to their apartment after they’d started dating, Leif was… not _bitter._ He would swear to anyone that asked that he was _not_ jealous. Because it is absolutely ridiculous to be both jealous of a cat and of the girl he’s dating who the cat happens to like just as much as him (not _more_ than him; even if it’s true, he won’t say it). So, he’s not jealous.

It was just that Zuko immediately took to her, from the second she’d walked in the door and he’d trotted up to her and rubbed his little face against her legs and meowed at her feet until she’d squatted down and scritched right between his ears until he let a soft purr meet the attention.

“You didn’t tell me you had a cat.” Zoey commented, smiling up at him from where she’d decided that sitting cross-legged on the floor and letting Zuko climb onto her lap was a better use of their time than the dinner and a movie that she’d come over for in the first place. “The _sweetest cat ever_ at that, oh my god. Look at him.”

Despite the jealousy underneath his chest ( _he_ thinks it’s valid, Zuko’s never taken this fast to anyone besides Leif before! He still won’t let Tobin pick him up and he’s lived with him for eight years! C’mon, dude!), he couldn’t help the smile that drifted onto his lips as Zoey took to Zuko immediately.

“ _Yeah_ , he’s a sweetheart.” The smile stayed wistful as his eyes narrowed. “Well, not really, actually, he’s a menace. He’s a sweetheart _to me._ And _you_ , apparently.”

“What’s his name?”

“Zuko.”

“ _Oh my god._ ”

“ _What?”_

“Nerd.” Zoey teased him, finally pushing Zuko lightly off of her lap and standing up, meeting Leif’s eyes where he’d leaned over the back of the couch to watch the two.

“It’s cause of the - cause he has the - the scar.”

“ _Yeah,_ I got that.” She laughed as she said it, taking advantage of him being closer to her height to leave a peck on his cheek as she passed him to head towards the kitchen. “I rule that the _‘nerd’_ still stands.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t watch _Avatar?_ ”

“Oh, no, I watched _every episode_ of _Avatar_ with _fervor_ , but if you’re gonna name a cat after one of the sibling duos, it could at least be Katara or Sokka.”

_“What?_ Dude, no, Zuko and Azula carried the show.”

“ _Carried the show?_ Okay, that’s on brand.”

“What’s on brand?”

“I just think it’s appropriate that you would sympathize with Zuko, that’s all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Reformed villain who’s actually more _awkward_ than _bad._ Sound familiar?”

“I don’t like the implication that I’m a _reformed villain._ ” Leif scoffed at that, though a smile still rested on his face beneath the _annoyance_ as he followed Zoey into the kitchen. “I’ve been… a bit of an _asshole,_ at _worst.”_

“You know I don’t like to bring this up, but your _thing_ with Joan definitely did _not_ feel… _not_ villainous.”

“You’re making me sound like a _cartoon villain_ , twirling my moustache and scheming in my lair.”

“ _Oh_ , baby… Cartoon villains are _much_ cooler than you.”

A faux-offended laugh choked up from Leif’s chest as he leaned on the counter.

“You _jest,_ but I’m still _right._ Zuko’s cool and Azula’s a badass even if she’s not, like… _morally right._ She was a traumatized teenager.”

“Hm, I’ll give you that. But only cause you’re so cute when you’re indignant.”

Leif gave her a thoughtful look at that before shrugging his shoulders.

“I’ll take it.” He smiled down at her as she rifled through his fridge, looking for _something_ edible that wouldn’t take too much effort (good luck to her; the contents of him and Tobin’s fridge consist of mostly raw vegetables, meat replacements and whatever leftovers Tobin’s shoved in there recently). “I think we’d be better off ordering Thai or something, babe. Anything I’ve got the ingredients for is gonna take, like… an hour, minimum.”

Zoey gave the fridge a pensive look before closing it and turning back towards Leif.

“Thai sounds amazing right now, honestly.”

“ _Tight.”_ Leif turned with the words to grab a takeout menu from one of the kitchen drawers, moving into the living room as he started to talk again. “But we gotta nix the movie and watch Avatar now, I _have_ to be proven right.”

“I just can’t believe you don’t like Sokka and Katara, they’re two of the _main characters.”_

“Hey now, that’s _slander._ I never said I didn’t _like_ Sokka and Katara, I just said Zuko and Azula are _better_. There’s a difference.”

“ _Right._ Well, we can definitely watch it, but only so that _I_ can prove the supremacy of Sokka and Katara.”

She followed him into the living room as he turned the TV on and she sat lightly on the couch, where Zuko immediately hopped up next to her and climbed onto her lap. Leif sat down with the remote, resting his arm around Zoey immediately and flipping to _Netflix_ to put the show on as he moved his feet to rest up on the coffee table. Zuko took the opportunity to shift and lay across both of their laps, exposing his belly up towards them and letting out a soft purr when Zoey shifted closer into Leif’s side and let her hand scratch lightly at his belly.

“You can stop being jealous of the cat now, he very clearly still loves you.”

“ _I’m not jealous of the cat.”_

**Author's Note:**

> comments always make me happy, like kudos make me happy but comments make me _happy_ you dig?


End file.
